


A Week in June

by storytellerluna



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Everyone Is Gay, F/M, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-17 03:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14824770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storytellerluna/pseuds/storytellerluna
Summary: Les Amis begin to have dreams about their past lives on the barricade, while simultaneously trying to prepare for Pride Month.  Because June is a lot of things, all at once.  (This is my contribution to Barricade Day 2018, hope you like it!)





	1. General Lamarque is Dead

June 1st.

_Paris, 1832.  Carriage wheels and horses’ hooves clattered on the cobblestones outside the café.  People filled the streets, shouting to be heard above the ruckus.  Some of them shouted normal things, like “good wine for sale!” and “get out of my shop, street rat!”  Others shouted something else.  They were angry.  There was something going on._

_Someone important had died._

Enjolras woke up and glanced around his room, disoriented after his dream.  He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes, then took in all his surroundings.  There was his desk, completely covered in books and papers.  He had left them strewn all over the place, as usual.  There was his phone, sitting on top of the books, plugged in to the wall.  He reached for it and unplugged it, then glanced at the time.  7:00 am.  He groaned and rubbed his eyes again.  He had gone to bed only four hours ago.

 _That was a dream,_ he told himself.  _It’s 2018.  Not… whatever year that was.  It’s okay.  No one is dead._  Then he wandered out into the living room of his apartment.

His roommate Combeferre was sitting hunched over their small table, a laptop in front of him and a cup of coffee by his side.  The bags under his eyes told Enjolras he probably hadn’t slept at all last night.  Enjolras mumbled a greeting and wandered into the kitchen to get his own cup of coffee.

“Don’t usually see you up this early,” Combeferre remarked, without looking up from the laptop.

“I had a dream,” Enjolras replied.  He was still thinking about his dream as he made the coffee.  Something told him it was important.  He normally didn’t dwell on these things for too long, but last night… he felt like he needed to know what it was about.

“A dream?” Combeferre asked when Enjolras reappeared in the living room.  “About what?”

Enjolras squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to remember it all.  “There was… a café,” he said finally.  “A street outside.  Carts and horses.  Some people were shouting, but I couldn’t see them.  I was inside the café, I think.”

“Carts and horses?” Combeferre asked.  “So this was some sort of period piece?  That’s cool, I wish my dreams would do something like that.”

“Someone is dead,” Enjolras said.  His voice sounded grave.

“What?  You mean in the dream?  Who was it?” Combeferre asked.

“I don’t know.  Someone important.”  Then, in his mind, he heard the echo of one of the shouts from the dream.  _Général Lamarque est mort._ He repeated the phrase for Combeferre.

“Enj, you know I don’t speak French,” Combeferre said.  “I took Spanish instead, remember?”

Enjolras didn’t realize he had said the phrase in French, but he translated it for Combeferre anyway.  “General Lamarque is dead.”

Combeferre typed “General Lamarque” into a Google search, and read the first paragraph in his Wikipedia entry out loud.  

“His death was the catalyst for the June Rebellion of 1832?” Enjolras asked when Combeferre read that part.  “I’ve never heard of the June Rebellion.  I wonder what it was about.”

Combeferre’s eyes scanned the June Rebellion page.  “It appears to have been a small, failed uprising in Paris,” he said.  “It doesn’t look like they achieved any of their goals.  Louis-Philippe remained king after the rebellion was put down.  That’s probably why they don’t teach us about this one in schools: it didn’t change anything.”

Enjolras frowned.  When Combeferre had said “Louis-Philippe,” it had filled him with such a powerful anger that he didn’t know what to do with it.  He didn’t know much about this old French king, but he didn’t like him one bit.  And for some reason, Combeferre saying that the June Rebellion didn’t change anything made Enjolras angry, too.  For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why.

Combeferre closed his laptop.  Reading about the June Rebellion was giving him some strange emotions, too, and he didn’t know how to react.  He decided it would be better not to think about it.  They had other things to think about, after all.

“Courf is already at the LGBTQ center,” he told Enjolras.  “He’s putting up the flags for Pride month, I think.  I was going to go join him earlier, but I had some things to finish writing up here.  What do you say?”

Enjolras nodded.  _“Allons-y._  Let’s go help him out.”  It was the first day of Pride month, after all.  He didn’t have time to think about long-dead generals or failed French rebellions.  There was a parade to plan, speeches to prepare, a community to celebrate.  He had a lot to do.

 

By the end of the day, dozens of people crowded into the LGBTQ center.  Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac had set up a refreshments table with pizza and snacks, and a merch table with T shirts, Pride flags, buttons, and assorted other things.  Courfeyrac had picked out the music.  Bahorel had set himself up in a corner, showing off his rainbow-colored brass knuckles to whoever wanted to see them.  It was going to be quite a party.

Courfeyrac’s ex, Marius, showed up holding his girlfriend Cosette’s hand.  Cosette wore a T shirt which said “I love my bi bf,” and she gravitated towards a jar full of Pride buttons as soon as she got in the door.  She found one with a heart on it in the bisexual pride colors, and pinned it on Marius’ jacket, saying “come on, represent us.  It’s Pride month.”

Cosette’s ex, Éponine, was there too, with part of her hair dyed rainbow, sporting a jacket covered in buttons with all sorts of lesbian puns.  Éponine showed her younger sister Azelma around the place, introducing her to various people and explaining a few of the flags to her.  “Baby’s first Pride,” she explained to some people.  “She’s just figuring things out.”

Meanwhile, Jehan danced on a table, laughing the whole time.  They were wearing a handmade dress in the colors of the nonbinary flag, and they danced the way they wanted to.  It was wild and erratic, not obeying any kind of rules.  Joly laughed along with Jehan, then pulled his boyfriend and his girlfriend into the dance as well.  Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta took turns dancing with each other in the middle of the room, just living it up.  Musichetta wore a poly pride flag braided into her hair, and her two boyfriends couldn’t keep their eyes off of her.

“Hey,” Joly said, nudging Bossuet.  “See her?  That’s my girlfriend.”

“She’s my girlfriend too!” Bossuet shouted.

“We have the best girlfriend,” Joly said, smiling.

Bossuet smiled at him, too.  “Yeah, we do.”

As Courfeyrac and Combeferre joined in the dancing, Enjolras walked around the dance floor to a corner table, where Feuilly was sitting with a laptop.  Feuilly glanced up when Enjolras sat down next to him, then continued working.

“Where’s your boyfriend?” Feuilly asked.

“I’m sure he’ll be along.”

“Something troubling you?”

Enjolras tried to think of how to phrase it.  _I had a dream about a dead French general who turned out to be a real guy_ isn’t really something people expect to hear.  Instead, he asked, “what are you working on?”

Feuilly turned the laptop around so Enjolras could see.  He had a PowerPoint pulled up with a picture of Marsha P. Johnson on the opening slide.  The title said “Queer History: life’s not as straight as you think.” 

“Nice!” Enjolras shouted.

“So, what’s troubling you?” Feuilly asked.  He could always tell when Enjolras was bothered by something.

Enjolras decided to take a chance.  He didn’t like to hide things from his friends, after all. 

“Feuilly, you’re a history buff,” he began.  “Um, how much do you know about Jean Maximilien Lamarque?”

To his surprise, Feuilly’s head snapped up.  “You had the dream too?!”

Enjolras blinked.  “What?”

“I had a dream last night that I was in 19th century France, Paris I think, and there were people in the streets shouting ‘General Lamarque is dead,’” Feuilly explained.  He said it in French just like Enjolras had that morning.  “And Bahorel told me that he dreamed he was in a riot, but not like the ones now.  There was no tear gas, just people throwing bricks at cops.”

Enjolras gestured back to the laptop, and its picture of Marsha P. Johnson.  “That’s not so old-fashioned,” he said.

“But wearing a gentleman’s waistcoat and cravat?” Feuilly asked.

Enjolras paused.  “Okay, that sounds a little more old-fashioned.”

“Hey there,” Grantaire said suddenly.  He had just arrived at the party, and had spotted the two of them talking from all the way across the room.  He hugged Enjolras from behind, and Enjolras turned around to kiss him on the cheek.

“What’s with the long faces?” Grantaire asked.  “Don’t you know there’s a party going on?  Wait, mon Ange, where is your ace pride scarf?  I thought you never went anywhere without it during the month of June.”

Enjolras felt around his neck and only then noticed that he wasn’t wearing a scarf.  Mentally, he chastised himself.  Why was he being so scatterbrained today?  He couldn’t help but think it was because of the dream.

“We were talking about some dreams we had,” Feuilly explained.  “They were weirdly similar, and they both took place in 19th century France…”

“General Lamarque is dead?” Grantaire asked.  He said it in French, too.

Enjolras and Feuilly both stared at him.  “Yes,” Enjolras whispered after a while.

“This is weird,” Grantaire said.

“Very,” Feuilly agreed.

“We’re going to get to the bottom of this, right?” Enjolras asked.  “Please tell me you want to know what’s going on, too.”

Feuilly and Grantaire nodded, but then Grantaire took Enjolras’ hands in his, and pulled Enjolras to his feet.

“But first, I want a dance,” he said.  “It is Pride month, after all.”


	2. Glimpses of a Luminous Uprising

June 2nd.

_The streets were paved in cobblestones, and merchants shouted their wares at the passersby, but this was no ordinary day.  Each French peasant had a gleam in their eye, like they knew something was coming, and soon.  They looked around as if sizing up everyone they saw, trying to determine who could be trusted and who might turn them in.  The wine merchant lowered his price, and began shouting “cheap wine!  Affordable red wine!  Have a drink, citizens!”  Nearby, policemen watched the people in the square with suspicion.  Everything and everyone was tense._

_A peasant woman approached from the wine merchant’s shop.  She touched Combeferre on the arm, and he turned to look at her.  He didn’t know her, but he had the strangest feeling, like he should have recognized her from somewhere._

_“You’re an intelligent young man,” she said.  “You know what’s about to happen, don’t you?”_

Combeferre blinked and found that he was awake.  The woman’s words were still in his mind.  The strangest part about all of it, to him, was that he had heard her speak in English in the dream, and yet he was positive she had actually spoken in French.  He wondered what she meant by “you know what’s about to happen.”

 _It doesn’t mean anything, Combeferre,_ he told himself.  _She’s just a figment of your imagination._

But he couldn’t get her out of his mind, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was trying to tell him something.  He also couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d met that woman somewhere before.

He got out of bed, got his coffee, and went for a walk around his neighborhood.  When he got back, he sat down at his laptop and started trying to research gay trailblazers, but found himself looking at pages about Paris in the 1830s instead.

“Morning,” Enjolras mumbled, several hours later.

Combeferre mumbled a reply, eyes still glued to his computer screen.

“Did you sleep last night?” Enjolras asked.

“Actually, yes I did,” Combeferre said.  “Promise.  I don’t pull all-nighters twice in a row anymore.”

Enjolras sat down at the table next to him.  “That’s good.  Oh, by the way, Grantaire and Feuilly and Bahorel are coming over later.  We’re looking into those shared dreams we had.”

Combeferre looked up.  “Did you have another one last night, by any chance?”

“Yeah,” Enjolras said.  He still looked sleepy, like his mind was far away.  “Yeah… there was a marketplace, and uh… a lot of people, and someone asked me if I was the one to lead them.  It was all very cryptic.  I still don’t know what to think of any of it.”

Combeferre rubbed his eyes.  “Well, I can tell you that you’re not crazy,” he said.  “Or if you are, then so am I.  I had a dream like that last night, too.”

That got Enjolras’ attention.  “Someone from 19th century France asked if you were the one to lead them?”

“Not quite.  She just asked if I knew what was coming.  But yeah, the 19th century France part… that’s pretty much spot on.  The policemen looked Napoleonic.”

“If it’s 1832, then that’s post-Napoleonic,” Enjolras corrected.

“When are Feuilly, Bahorel, and Grantaire coming over?” Combeferre asked.  “Do I need to make waffles or something?”

“You could make waffles for us, since we’re here now,” Enjolras suggested.  “Grantaire might not be awake for a few more hours, after all.”

 

Feuilly and Bahorel showed up pretty soon, while Enjolras and Combeferre were still eating their waffles.  Grantaire didn’t show up until around 3 pm, and Combeferre got up to make some more waffles while Enjolras sighed and made a hangover cure for his boyfriend.  Then the five Amis sat around Enjolras and Combeferre’s table, munching on waffles and talking about their shared dreams and whatever else came up.  Grantaire pulled his chair over right next to Enjolras’ chair, so he could lean on his boyfriend while other people spoke.  When Enjolras spoke, Grantaire gave him some space.

They spent the whole afternoon piecing together the story from all of the dreams they’d had so far.  Feuilly took notes as more things came to light, and after a while, he started doodling a timeline for everything they had seen.  Combeferre kept his laptop open, and rapidly Googled people, events, and general facts about the Paris of 1832.  As the afternoon wound down in to evening, they found that they had a surprisingly detailed picture of the time period.

“So, they had just overthrown their king two years before,” Enjolras said.  “And then they had another one who was the same if not worse.  No wonder people were so angry.”

“And this General Lamarque seems to have been the only one with a voice in government who cared about the common people,” Combeferre added.  “And then he dies.  They’re left with no one to turn to.”

“And their lives were already so bad,” Feuilly pointed out.  “No bread, no clean water, no systems in place to help them.  High rent, low pay.  It’s a cycle that keeps people in poverty.”

“Oppression after oppression,” Bahorel muttered.  “I think we can understand that.  We’ve got some of those same issues now.”

Combeferre nodded.  “We had a victory a few years ago, with the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision, but now we’re having to fight against bathroom bills and other legislation meant to subjugate and demoralize…”

“Yeah, one more piece of nonsense and I’d be ready to riot too,” Bahorel said.

“You’re ready to riot now,” Feuilly reminded him.

“True, I am always ready to riot,” Bahorel said, grinning.

“But why are we having dreams about this now?” Combeferre asked, voicing the important question.  “Why the June Rebellion, specifically?  It seems to be relevant, with the issues that Feuilly pointed out, but there are plenty of other historical rebellions that had some of these same themes.  And plenty that were a little longer lasting than this one.”

Enjolras nudged his boyfriend gently.  “You’ve been unusually quiet,” he said.  “What’s your take on all this?”

“I don’t have any thoughts about this,” Grantaire mumbled.

“Yes you do,” Enjolras insisted.  “You always have thoughts about everything.  I’ve heard your drunken rambles.”

Grantaire sighed.  “Okay,” he admitted.  “It’s just that my dream last night got me on edge a little.  I don’t know why.  Like… like the end is coming.”

“The end is coming?” Feuilly asked.  “Seriously?”

“I don’t know, it was just that I saw you guys, and we were in some old French café.  Enjolras was giving a speech about revolution.  And I was just watching from the corner, and I couldn’t help but think…”

“What?” Enjolras asked softly.

_“He’s not going to make it.”_

Everyone went quiet then.  Some of them stared at the table.  Others stared at Grantaire.  Then, Combeferre spoke up.

“Grantaire, do you think Enjolras is going to die?”

“It was just a dream,” Enjolras said.

“General Lamarque died on June 1st,” Combeferre pointed out.  “That was yesterday, and that’s the day you all had your dreams about him.  I’m starting to think I probably would have had one too if I’d slept that night.  Then last night, we all had pretty ominous dreams about something that is about to happen.  We’re all describing the same streets, the same marketplace, the same café.  And the June Rebellion started on June 5th.”

“What are you saying?” Enjolras asked.

“I’m saying it’s hardly a coincidence, is it?” Combeferre asked.  “I want to know if the rest of our friends are having dreams like this too.  I want to know what our group has to do with the June Rebellion. If the dreams are warnings, I want to know what precautions we should take for our Pride parade on the 6th.”  He thought about the woman from his dream again, and what she had told him.  He was sure he hadn’t met her in this life, but at the same time, he was sure he knew her.  How could that be possible?  And why would she show up in his dream if he’d never met her before?  Finally, he stood up and looked every one of his friends in the eye, and when he did, they saw how important this was to him.

“I need to know what happens next,” he said.  They all nodded along.  They needed to know, too.  It was important to all of them, too.


	3. Courfeyrac, Do You Have All the Guns?

June 3rd.

_The Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1830s was full of students.  They lounged about in street cafés or in parks, laughed and made jokes, and talked about all kinds of subjects, both encouraged and forbidden._

_Courfeyrac bounded up the steps to his apartment, ignoring the friendly shouts of the students in the street.  He greeted the porter with a quick “bonjour” before running into his room.  There was his bed, with its coverlets just like he had left them.  There was the mattress on the floor where Marius had been sleeping.  He passed by both of these things and opened a closet, shoving aside some fashionable overcoats to see what was in the back._

_There, behind the coats, was a series of carbines and longer rifles, all of a common 19 th century model.  They sat propped up against the back of his closet as if waiting for someone to take them out and use them.  Courfeyrac counted them, checked the ammunition, and then put them back in the closet and shut the door. _

_It wasn’t time yet, but it would be soon._

Courfeyrac jumped out of bed immediately and splashed some water on his face.  _That wasn’t enough guns for the rebellion, you’re going to need more,_ he thought.  Then, a moment later, he thought _wait a minute.  I don’t own any guns!  Why would I keep guns in my closet?_

He opened his closet, and pushed back the jackets, dress shirts, pants, and the old graduation robe that he kept in there.  At the back of the closet was a poster that said “closets are for clothes.  Really fabulous clothes.”  There were no guns whatsoever.

“That’s more like it,” he muttered out loud, although the room was empty except for him.  Then he got dressed and went to the little breakfast café across the street from his building.  They had really good croissants which were his absolute favorite.

Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta were already in the café when he got there.  They were sitting around a table in the corner, talking in hushed voices about something.  As Courfeyrac got closer, he heard them mention dreams.

“It’s okay, ‘Chetta, Bossuet and I would never leave you out of something like that,” Joly was saying.

“That’s not why I’m upset,” Musichetta replied.  Her worry was evident in her eyes.  “It’s the fact that you were both stockpiling guns without telling me about it.  Like you were about to go declare war on King Louis-Philippe and you didn’t even want to address the fact that it might be deadly.  No goodbyes?  What if you died and I never got to see you again?”

“Who is stockpiling guns?” Courfeyrac asked as he walked up to their table.  He made sure to keep his voice down, though.  He didn’t want to freak out any of the other morning customers.

“We had a shared dream last night,” Bossuet explained.  “All of us had the exact same one.  Joly and I were gathering our weapons for the June Rebellion and then Musichetta walked in on us.”

Courfeyrac nodded as Bossuet explained it.  He understood it perfectly, and it seemed to fit well with his dream, too.  As if these were real events that had all happened on the same day.

“Yeah, I remember that,” he muttered.

Bossuet frowned.  “What?”

“What?” Courfeyrac asked.  “I said I remember… oh.  Um.  That’s not possible.”

“Did you have the same dream?” Joly asked.  “Because three people having a shared dream is weird enough, but four…”

“Mine was slightly different,” Courfeyrac said.  “But similar.”  Then, pulling up a chair, he sat down at their table and explained to them what had happened in his dream.

 

They spent the entire morning hunched over croissants, talking about what could be happening.  None of them had any really solid ideas: they had all figured out that the dreams were about the June Rebellion of 1832, and they all had the feeling that they were more than just dreams, but beyond that, they had no clue what to think.  Joly had even paged through his collection of obscure science books, but even those didn’t really give the group any good answers.  They were about to write it all off as just a weird and crazy happenstance, when Combeferre walked in.

“Jehan is over at the public library,” Combeferre announced.  “They’ve pretty much made their own barricade out of books, actually.  But anyway, they think they found something interesting and they asked me to come find you all.”

Courfeyrac, Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta quickly paid for their breakfast and followed Combeferre to the public library, which was only a few blocks away.  When they got there, the librarian on duty looked up and smiled at them.

“Hello again,” she said.  “The LGBT fiction display that I promised you is right over there, I just got it set up this morning!”

Courfeyrac gave her a winning smile.  “Thanks, but we’re actually here looking for our friend Jehan right now.”

“Oh!  They’re up on the third floor,” the librarian said.  “I was just up there putting some books away.  It looks like your friend has found quite a treasure trove of knowledge!”

Soon, all of Les Amis were gathering on the third floor of the library.  They had to borrow a conference room so they could talk to each other without disturbing the other guests.  There weren’t quite enough chairs in the conference room for all of them, so Éponine sat on the table, Bahorel decided to lean against the wall instead, and Cosette and Marius shared a lounge chair that they pulled in from another part of the library.  Jehan sat cross-legged on the table with about ten books spread out all around them, looking shockingly like a young witch in the middle of a summoning circle.

“So,” Jehan began.  “We’ve all been dreaming about the June Rebellion.”  There was some muttering and nodding from the group.  “Now let’s delve into the ultimate question: _why?”_ They picked up a book on metaphysics that was right in front of them, and held it up for Les Amis to see.  

“Now, we already know that dreams are images shown to us while we’re sleeping by our subconscious minds,” Jehan said.  “They usually involve places and people that we are familiar with.  The dreams we’ve been having, however, don’t follow those rules.  Combeferre, you were telling me about the woman from your dream the night before last?”

“Yeah,” Combeferre said.  “She was a 19th century Parisian peasant.  I recognized her in the dream, but I’m certain I’ve never met her before.”

“And the places we’ve been describing are obviously not anywhere we’ve actually been.”

“Enjolras studied abroad in France last year,” Grantaire pointed out.

“Yes, but I didn’t see the Café Musain,” Enjolras argued.  “I actually looked it up after dreaming about it.  It used to be in Saint-Michel, in Paris, but it was torn down years ago.”

“The Paris that we’ve been dreaming about is _19 th century Paris,_” Feuilly said.  “And I’ve studied some of that before, but not enough to be having realistic dreams like this.  We researched some of it yesterday.”  Here he gestured around to the people who had been with him in Enjolras and Combeferre’s apartment yesterday.  “And our dreams are astonishingly accurate.  Like a window into real events that happened in June of 1832.”

“That’s another thing I wanted to point out!” Jehan cried.  “Thank you, Feuilly.  On June 1st, we all dreamed that General Lamarque was dead.  That is the actual day that he died.  This can’t possibly be a coincidence.”  They flipped a page in the metaphysics textbook, and showed their friends a diagram labeled “Reincarnation.”

Les Amis all stared at the diagram and thought it over for a moment.  Every person had a different expression on their face.  Grantaire looked skeptical.  Marius looked intrigued.  Joly leaned forward to peer at the diagram a little closer.

“Okay,” Joly said after a while.  “Let’s suppose this is a possibility.  Let’s suppose we are all the reincarnated versions of a group of rebellious students from 1830’s Paris.  Why are we having dreams about it now?  What are we supposed to do with this knowledge?”

“We’re having a rebellion now, too,” Courfeyrac said.  He looked around the room to see how many others had come to that same conclusion.  “Pride is a rebellion against a heteronormative world.”

“The first gay pride was a riot,” Bahorel added.

“Very true.”

Jehan picked up a different book, this one about world religions.  They opened it to a chapter on Hinduism and began reading aloud: “Hindus believe that the soul must be reincarnated multiple times until it reaches Nirvana.”  They closed the textbook. “Maybe we’re doing this all over again because we failed the last time.”

“So, what is our objective?” Combeferre asked.  “After all, planning a Pride parade isn’t exactly the same thing as planning a violent uprising.  We can’t undo the mistakes we made then.”

“No, but we can learn from them,” Jehan said.  “We can do things better this time.  Maybe without all the guns.”

They stayed in the conference room in the public library for a little while after that, discussing possibilities for their Pride parade on the 6th, perusing the books Jehan had gotten out, and chatting among themselves about whether or not they believed in this whole idea of reincarnation.  After a while, some of them began to filter off to other events, or to get dinner, or to go take a nap.  Combeferre helped Jehan gather up all the books and carry them to one of the library desks.  Grantaire pulled Enjolras aside as they left the room.

“Have I been in any of your dreams yet?” he asked his boyfriend.

Enjolras looked down.  “No,” he admitted.

“Well, you’ve been in all of mine.  And I have my own suggestion for what I think we should do.”

“What is that?” Enjolras asked.

“Don’t die.”  Grantaire’s voice had gotten quiet.  “I think that would be an improvement.”

Enjolras watched him, and saw how serious he was.  He wondered what exactly Grantaire’s dreams had been like.  Then, he hugged his boyfriend close to him.

“Okay,” he said.  “We won’t die this time.  We’ll stay alive.”

“You’d better.”

Enjolras looked his boyfriend in the eyes.  “It’s a promise.”


	4. One Day More

June 4th.

_People filled the streets of the working class district of Paris, shouting things like “It’s time!” “It’s 1789 again!” “Viva la Revolution!”  Feuilly marched at their head, brandishing a sword and shouting “to me, citizens!”  Together, they marched to Saint-Michel as the night began to settle in._

_Street lamps went on as the people gathered in the streets outside the Café Musain.  Enjolras and Marius appeared in a second floor window, and Enjolras gave a speech about liberty and what they could expect tomorrow morning.  It was all going to start at the funeral of General Lamarque.  It was going to be just like before.  In the morning, they would have their moment, and hopefully France could be free again._

_There was only one more day._

Feuilly woke up with the dawn, as he usually did.  He went through his morning routines just like it was a normal day.  It was only as he stepped out the door, his shoulder bag full of pamphlets to hand out downtown, that he noticed that he was humming a song in French.  That was especially strange, since he had not taken French as his language option, opting for Polish instead.

He pondered his dream as he walked to the corner in front of the grocery store.  The grocery, he figured, was the place people were most likely to visit.  After all, everyone needed to buy food.  He set himself up outside the grocery store with a handful of pamphlets, and hummed the old French song to himself as he waited for the first people to arrive.

The pamphlets were outlined with several different Pride flags, and they had a bold headline which read “Queer liberation, not rainbow capitalism.”  Feuilly handed them out, and talked to some of the people about what it meant.  A handful of people got very excited when they saw him, high-fived him and wished him a happy Pride Month.  A few others scoffed and looked down their noses at him, but he paid them no mind.  Most people just walked by without acknowledging that he was there.

“One day more,” a voice said to his left, and he turned.  Enjolras strode towards him through the grocery store parking lot, looking for all the world like an angelic being which was very out of place in a grocery store parking lot.  Feuilly smiled.

“Good morning,” he said.  “How was your dream last night?”

“Glorious,” Enjolras answered, smiling with the memory of it.  “Triumphant.  And even now, I have this feeling that everything is going to fall into place tomorrow at General Lamarque’s funeral.  The whole city will join us.”

“General Lamarque’s funeral was 186 years ago, Enj,” Feuilly reminded his friend.

Enjolras glanced at him.  “Right, of course.  It’s just that these dreams have been so vivid, so realistic.  I can remember things about 1832 that weren’t in the dreams.  I really feel like I was there.”

Feuilly nodded.  “I know what you mean.  I woke up singing La Marseillaise.”

“In French?”

“Of course in French, what other language is there to sing it in?”

“And you understood the words?” Enjolras asked.

“Not all of them.”

Enjolras thought about it, and absentmindedly handed out some more pamphlets in the process.  He couldn’t find another explanation for the things they had been experiencing.  Finally, he muttered, “I think what Jehan was telling us yesterday might be true.”

Feuilly nodded.  “Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing.”

 

Marius showed up later to help them hand out pamphlets, and the three of them laughed about how much it was like their dream last night.  At one point, Enjolras and Marius even climbed into the back of Feuilly’s pick up truck and repeated their speeches from the dream word for word.  Feuilly clapped for them, then turned around and kept handing out pamphlets to the people walking by behind him.

“For Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity!” Enjolras shouted as Feuilly handed someone a queer liberation pamphlet.

“Are you guys starting a gay frat?” the passerby asked.  He had been reading the pamphlet as Enjolras was speaking.  “That sounds cool.  I’d join it.”

“We’re having a Pride parade, actually, in two days,” Feuilly said.  “Tomorrow we’re gathering behind the LGBTQ center to put together our float.”

“Cool,” the guy said.  Then he wandered off.

Marius climbed down from the back of the pickup truck as soon as the guy had gone.  “Speaking of building the float,” he said, “I promised Courfeyrac I’d bring some of the materials for it, and I haven’t bought them yet.  Do you think we could stop by the craft store after we’re done here?  There’s only one more day for me to get them, and if I don’t get reminded, I might forget.”

Enjolras and Feuilly both nodded and agreed not to let him forget about the materials.  Then the three of them quickly handed out the rest of their pamphlets, piled into Feuilly’s battered old truck, and were on their way to do Marius’ errand.

Enjolras stared out the window as they drove.  “Hey, Feuilly, this truck is the one that’s going to be pulling our float on the 6th, right?” he asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“I was just thinking we should decorate it with some rainbows, too.  I have this vision of our flags flying from everywhere we could possibly get them to fly.”

Feuilly nodded.  As usual, Enjolras had wonderful ideas.  Then, with the windows rolled down, the wind in their hair, they began singing their triumphant music yet again as the truck pulled out onto the highway.  They wanted to make this the gayest and most revolutionary parade float their town had ever seen, and they had a feeling that with their collective visions of June 1832, they might just be able to achieve that this time.

They couldn’t wait to get started.


	5. Do You Hear the People Sing?

June 5th.

_They heard the clattering of horses’ hooves on pavement.  The rattle of wheels.  Hundreds of National Guardsmen in uniform and on horseback rode alongside the hearse that carried General Lamarque to his resting place.  At their head rode the Marquis de Lafayette, 74 years old now, but he still sat up tall on his horse like a general._

_As they watched the parade pass by, Les Amis waited for their moment.  It was going to be any second now.  With the waving of a red flag, their rebellion could begin._

All of them were eager to get to the LGBTQ center that morning.  They got dressed in a hurry, and even Bahorel didn’t spend too much time pondering over which vest to wear.  Enjolras ran his fingers through his hair once and declared it good enough before barging out the door.  All of them were jumpy for a reason they could only think of one explanation for:

It was June 5th.  There was something they had to do.

Feuilly had gotten there first, and had parked his truck behind the building like they had planned.  Courfeyrac was there very soon after, and brought the undecorated float with him.  Then Marius and Cosette showed up with Enjolras, Grantaire, and Combeferre.  They brought the decoration materials that Marius had bought the day before.  The rest of Les Amis trickled in, all within an hour of each other.  It was unusual that they had all woken up so early, but they shrugged it off.  It meant they would have more time to decorate their float that day, and more time to spend together too.

They started by hanging some rainbow-colored ribbon and bows around the edges of the float.  Cosette and Éponine helped Feuilly hang some flags from each window of his truck, so that it looked just as gay as the float did.  As the morning pressed on, and they began to build their float up higher and higher, Enjolras climbed up on top of it to plant a flag on the top.  Marius handed him the biggest Pride flag he’d been able to find, and Enjolras wielded it like it was the most important thing he’d ever held in his life.

As he stood there on top of the float, a wind blew through his hair, and he had the distinct feeling that he had done this before.  He raised the flag high and closed his eyes, and he could imagine that it was a pure red flag, and that he was standing on top of a 19th century-style horse-drawn carriage.  He gave himself a moment to enjoy that feeling, then opened his eyes again.  Grantaire was standing directly in front of the float on the ground, beaming up at him like he was the sun.

“Here,” Grantaire said.  “I’ll switch flags with you.  I want a photo of you holding this one.”  And he handed an asexual flag up to Enjolras.

Enjolras tossed the gay pride flag to his boyfriend, and caught the ace one instead.  He thrust it high in the air and shouted _“Revolution!”_  He hadn’t known what he was going to say before he said it.

“June Rebellion!” a few other Amis shouted from various places on the float.

“Liberty for France!” Marius shouted, like he had shouted in one of his dreams.

“And liberty for us!” Courfeyrac added on.  The whole group cheered.

“Down with oppressive governments!” Jehan cried, climbing the float to pin a trans flag to one of its sides.  “And police brutality!  Down with homophobia, transphobia, and sexism!”  They turned it into a chant then, and the rest of Les Amis joined in.

As they were still screaming their protest chants, a cop rounded the corner and watched them with a poker face expression.  He waited for the noise to die down a little before coughing to make his presence known.

“Excuse me,” he said, making his voice carry over the whole area.  “What is going on here?”

“We’re just preparing our float for the Pride parade tomorrow,” Courfeyrac explained.

“Do you have a permit?” the cop asked.

“Yes, officer, I do,” Courfeyrac said.  “It’s right here.”

He showed the cop their parade permit, and the cop examined it closely for a good two minutes.  Then he nodded and left.  Courfeyrac turned back to Les Amis.  Enjolras, Marius, Grantaire, and Jehan were still standing on the float, but most of them were just standing around in the parking lot like a bunch of statues.  They had been staring at the cop like they were frozen in time, wondering what to do.

“Did any of the rest of you recognize that officer?” Courfeyrac asked.  “Or was that just me?”

“I recognized him,” Combeferre said.  Jehan nodded their agreement, and Bossuet and Joly glanced at each other to see if they had the same memory.

“I think he looked familiar,” Marius said, “but it was weird that he was wearing a modern police uniform.  I can picture him in like a navy blue overcoat with a fleur de lis on his collar or something.”

“I can picture him in a nondescript jacket with a red, white, and blue rosette on his lapel,” Grantaire said.

“His name is Javert,” Éponine said.  Then she frowned.  She wasn’t sure how she had known that cop’s name, but she was sure she had it right.

“Well, I don’t think he’s going to bother us this time around,” Enjolras said.  Then he thrust his ace flag into the air again and screamed _“Do you hear the people sing!”_

They began singing a rousing, triumphant song as they finished decorating their float.  After several hours of delaying it, and fixing up things that didn’t really need to be fixed, and fussing over little details, they finally had to admit that the float was complete.  But there were still several hours left in the day, and they didn’t know what else to do with themselves.

“I have an idea,” Bossuet said, glancing at Joly and Musichetta with a gleam in his eye.  “Why don’t we hang out in the LGBTQ center, order some pizza or something, and put on a good queer movie.  We can barricade the doors and only let people in if they know the password.”

“What’s the password?” Joly asked.

“Whatever the people come up with,” Bossuet replied, smiling.  “I don’t actually want to keep anyone out.”

“I think it sounds like a great idea,” Musichetta said.  “So… who is going to say the thing?”

“What thing?” Cosette asked.

“You say it, Bossuet, it was your idea,” Enjolras suggested.

Bossuet beamed.  “Okay.”  Then, just for the fun of it, he punched his fist into the air before shouting “to the barricades!”

 

They spent the rest of the day holed up in the LGBTQ center, pretending that it was their great revolutionary barricade.  They piled some chairs up near the doors, and moved them out of the way when the pizza delivery arrived.  They sang songs that they liked, and set up a movie projector, and watched the movie “Pride” while curled up together munching on pizza.  And at the end of the day, they all fell asleep on the floor of the LGBTQ center, with pizza boxes and tables and chairs still scattered around.  It was their great modern barricade, and there had been no bloodshed at all.


	6. To the Barricades!

June 6th.

_Cannons and fire and smoke.  The world smelled like gunpowder and blood.  There was the sound of breaking furniture along with more cannon fire, and a barricade gave way to a stream of National Guardsmen.  The street was lined with closed doors and locked window shutters, and in an upstairs room, two young men held hands before a firing squad._

Enjolras woke up with a jolt and sat bolt upright in bed, breathing heavily.  A part of him had known a dream like that must be coming.  They had all researched the June Rebellion after all.  They knew how it ended.

 _It’s 2018,_ he reminded himself yet again.  _No one is dead._

Even still, he called Grantaire and put the phone on speaker as he was getting dressed.

Grantaire picked up on the first ring, and instead of saying something like “you’re up early!” Enjolras said “oh thank God, you’re there.”

“Yeah,” came Grantaire’s response.  His voice sounded muffled through the phone.  “I’m here.”

They talked for the entire time it took them to get downtown.  As Enjolras entered the place where they were going to start their parade from, he stayed on the phone with Grantaire until he could hear a strange echo in his boyfriend’s voice.  Like it was coming through the phone and also from behind him.

He turned around and Grantaire smiled at him, then hung up the phone.  They hugged each other in the parking lot.  Then they were kissing, and neither of them wanted to stop, but they finally had to pull apart to breathe.

“I saw you in my dream last night,” Enjolras whispered, still hugging Grantaire close to him.  “I saw you, and I saw the… oh my god.”

“Yeah,” Grantaire said again.

“Is that what your dreams have been like?”

Grantaire nodded.  “Yeah.”

“Grantaire, I had no idea.”  He shook his head trying to make sense of it all.  Finally, he said, “we must have been close in that past life, too.”

“Will you permit me to hold your hand today in the Pride parade?”

Enjolras smiled and took Grantaire’s hand in his.  “Of course.”

 

The Pride parade went off without a hitch.  Courfeyrac marched at the front, alongside their truck pulling the float.  He wore a gay pride flag as a cape, and smiled and waved at everyone he saw along the way.  Éponine marched on the other side of the float, waving her own gay flag and smiling at the girls in the crowd.  Marius and Cosette marched behind the float, both of them wrapped in one big bi flag and looking like the happiest bi couple at Pride.

Feuilly drove the truck and beamed every time someone waved at him from the crowd.  Bahorel sat in the passenger seat of the truck, controlling the music that blared through Feuilly’s speakers.  Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta stood in the flat bed of the truck, dancing to Bahorel’s music and just generally having the time of their lives, letting all the world know that they were an adoring healthy polyamorous triad and they loved it.

Combeferre stood on the float, waving to one side of the street, while Jehan beamed and shouted happily at the people on the other side of the street.  Jehan stood in front of the giant trans flag they had attached to the float the day before, and they wanted everyone to see it and know that Pride was for them, too.

“Pride was started by trans women!” Jehan shouted.  The rainbows went everywhere, and Combeferre threw candy to the people, and it was glorious.

On top of the float, next to the big pride flag he had planted there earlier, stood Enjolras, hand in hand with Grantaire.  The people cheered for them as they showed their rainbow colors to the world, and Enjolras smiled and glanced at his boyfriend.

“The people are here for us,” he said.

“Well, they’re here for the parade,” Grantaire reminded him.

“I mean they’re here for us, the gay activists, the community, everything we’ve built,” Enjolras said.  “They are listening to what we say.  The world wants to see us for who we are today.”

Grantaire looked at him and immediately saw what he was getting at.  And for once, he had no cynical or depressed comments to make.  “You mean the people rose,” he said.  “They didn’t abandon us.”

Enjolras squeezed his hand.  “Yes, that’s precisely what I mean.”

From below them on the float, Jehan screamed “Long live the future!” and Enjolras punched his hand into the air as a fist.  Grantaire’s hand was still in his, so they both ended up standing there looking like victorious fighters, admiring their flags that flew from every building.  Just for that day, the world was theirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BE HAPPY MY FRIENDS


	7. When Tomorrow Comes

June 7th.

_Everything was quiet.  The streets were quiet.  The interior of the café was quiet.  Part of a broken bottle cracked underfoot, and Marius looked down.  There was spilled wine all over the floor._

Marius groaned and rolled over in bed.  His hand touched Cosette’s shoulder, and she made a happy little sleepy noise.  He opened his eyes.

“Oh my friends, my friends, don’t ask me…”

 _Don’t ask me what?_ he thought to himself.   _Everything’s fine._

In the bed next to him, Cosette woke up.  She rolled over to face him, and smiled in that beautiful sunny way of hers.  “Good morning,” she whispered.  “How did you sleep?”

He thought about it.  “Okay, I guess,” he said.  “My dream was weird.”

“Dreams are often like that,” she said.

They lay there for a while, pondering life and other things, until Marius’ phone buzzed.  He reached over Cosette to get it.  It was a text from Courfeyrac.

“Are you two kids coming to the LGBTQ center today?” the text read.  “Everyone else is already down here.”

Marius glanced at the time, and only then realized he had slept in.  He and Cosette tumbled out of bed and got dressed, and were at the LGBTQ center soon enough.  Marius still wore the bi pride pin on his jacket that Cosette had pinned there six days ago.

For some reason, it filled Marius with relief to see the LGBTQ center filled with Les Amis.  It looked like any other normal day.  Enjolras and Grantaire were sitting on a table kissing.  Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta were all cuddled up in a corner.  Éponine was sitting on a different table, with a girl she’d met at Pride leaning on her like there was no more comfortable thing in the world.  Everyone else was there too, working on projects for later in Pride month, or just doing their own thing.

Courfeyrac waved to Marius and Cosette as they walked into the place.  “You’re late, as always, Marius,” he said.  Marius blushed.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.  “Um, forgive me…”

Courfeyrac rolled his eyes.  “There’s nothing to forgive you for, it’s all good.  It’s not like you’re late for anything important.  We’re just hanging out.”

So Marius pushed his negative feelings to the back of his mind, and found a couch to curl up on with Cosette.  Jehan was reciting some of their poetry nearby, and Marius and Cosette listened to it, and forgot about that weird dream they’d had where the café had been empty.  All seemed right in their world at the moment, and so they let themselves enjoy it.  And it was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this! It's something I came up with on June 1st and I wanted to provide a relief from all the tears that usually come with Barricade Day.


End file.
